HART staff says it can balance the budget — but with little to spare

Officials with the Amalgamated Transit Union, the bargaining unit for HART bus drivers, complained that employees are being overworked, often working six- and seven-day work weeks.

That figure was not disputed by HART officials. Chief Operating Officer Katharine Eagan said the job of driving a bus is not an easy one, and that junior staffers work on Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Michael Stephens, HART's human resources manager, said that with the economy improving, "sizable" transportation agencies on hiring sprees might come after HART drivers.

Hillsborough County Commissioner and HART board member Mark Sharpe said he took seriously the issues the union presented, adding that the focus needs to be on the customers.

Sharpe's colleague on the county commission and HART board, Sandy Murman, said she was extremely impressed by Seward's presentation but said the agency needed to do more.

"Where's the vision? Where do we want to go?" Murman asked, saying the five-year plan laid out on Monday was fine, "but where do we want to be in 10?" She said the Metro Rapid line that will run from downtown to USF expected to begin next year was "great," but added, "Is that all we want to do?"

HART's CEO Philip Hale calls the five-year plan "static," and said the agency didn't have the money to do anything more ambitious, though he said staff would discuss alternative sources of funding at the next board meeting.

Board member Ron Govin was ambivalent about the future. He said the fact that HART's staff could produce numbers to be self-sustaining over the next five years was beyond his "wildest dreams," but said the reality was the agency wasn't going to expand any of its routes or add service, and that was absolutely antithetical to its mission statement. He said additional riders "are going to swell the system," and wondered where the agency could add another $2 to $3 million a year to enhance the system rather than keep it static.

Next step: The proposed budget goes before the Finance, Governance and Administration Committee on May 21. It then goes before the full board on June 4.